Introduction

The Best PC Builds. Our title is practically self-explanatory. Unlike the System Builder Marathon, these configurations are not chosen by Tom's Hardware's editors. They are submitted and selected by our forum members based on defined pricing tiers. Every so often, we ask the community for its help picking parts based on performance and features for the price. Feel free to quibble in the comments, as always, and submit your own ideas next time around. Seriously. Someone needs to take down SR-71 Blackbird's setups, which owned three of our subcategories!

The Tom's Hardware editors and forum team believe this is a great place to come together and showcase the fusion of content and community. For nearly two decades (2016 marks our 20th anniversary) Tom's Hardware has brought you the news and reviews of the latest in PC hardware, but also the famous Tom's Hardware forum, now more than 2 million members strong, a remarkable milestone we recently surpassed.

The forum attracts technology enthusiasts of all stripes and levels, connected by their interest in discussing computer hardware and helping solve technical challenges. Many are ultimately seeking help in building a PC, and they receive that help not only through our editorial content but thanks to the dedicated moderators and forum members who put countless hours into assisting others. Because of their expertise and the constant requests for help with PC builds, our members have developed a talent for finding the best prices and putting together the best system builds.

The following selections showcase all of that. We received numerous submissions and enjoyed examining all of your PC builds, but we could ultimately only select one system per price range — thanks to the readers and forum members who participated!

Best $500 PC Build

Soup Kitchen Super Gamer

Built By: darkbreeze

Forum moderator DarkBreeze submitted the best PC build under $500. The “Soup Kitchen Super Gamer” relies on a relatively low-end AMD Athlon X4 860K quad-core CPU able to hit 4GHz out of the box. This relatively inexpensive processor frees up some extra room in the budget, which permitted DarkBreeze to place a Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 GPU with 2GB of GDDR5 on his Gigabyte motherboard. The rest of the PC parts are budget-oriented choices, but are nonetheless decent quality components that come together to create a balanced PC build capable of playing modern games with reasonable settings and frame rates.

Best $750 PC Build

Best $750 PC Build

Built By: SR-71 Blackbird

With an extra $250 in the budget, SR-71 Blackbird’s $750 PC build offers significantly higher performance than the best $500 system. By using an entry-level Gigabyte GA-H110M-A motherboard, SR-71 Blackbird was able to stretch his budget to afford an Intel sixth-gen (Skylake) Core i5-6500 processor that is vastly superior to the X4 860K. SR-71 Blackbird also opted to go with a PowerColor Radeon R9 390 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5. Overall, the system should be capable of playing most modern games with maxed out (or close to maxed out) settings at 1080p, and shouldn’t face too many problems at 2K resolutions with slightly lower graphics settings.

Best $1000 PC Build

Screaming Skylake Build

Built By: SR-71 Blackbird

SR-71 Blackbird’s “Screaming Skylake” build is similar to his $750 build, but with slight enhancements across the board. Given a more generous budget, SR-71 Blackbird pushed for an even higher-performance Intel CPU and AMD GPU. The system has twice as much RAM as the $750 build, a 120GB SSD to accelerate reads and writes from storage and it contains a higher-quality EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W 80 PLUS Gold-rated PSU.

Best $1250 PC Build

Bleeding Out

Built By: SR-71 Blackbird

With SR-71 Blackbird’s “Bleeding Out” build, he continues the trend of steadily upgrading his idea of balance with higher-quality components. This system employs the same GPU, power supply and HDD, but replaces the processor with Intel's Core i5-6600K on a Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 motherboard and a high-end Cryorig H5 Ultimate air cooler. The main feature this build adds over the less expensive versions is CPU overclockability through a K-series processor. SR-71 Blackbird also traded out the 120GB SSD for a 250GB Samsung 850 EVO, yielding additional storage space.

Best $1500 PC Build

Game Changer

Built By: BadActor

The “Game Changer” built by BadActor pushes for even better gaming performance through an EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti SC graphics card with 6GB of GDDR5. The build is, in many ways, similar to the “Bleeding Out” system. However, BadActor opted to go with a lower-end air cooler and less system memory to help cover the GTX 980 Ti's premium.

Best $1750 PC Build

Big Things Come In Small Packages

Built By: g-unit1111

G-Unit1111’s “Big Things Come In Small Packages” build takes a different approach to achieving higher frame rates. This system uses two EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 SC graphics cards with 4GB of GDDR5 in an SLI configuration. It uses the same CPU, SSD and motherboard as SR-71 Blackbird’s “Bleeding Out” system, but G-Unit1111 opted to use a high-end Phanteks PH-TC12DX cooler instead of the similarly-priced Cryorig H5 Ultimate. It also uses the best PSU of any build in our line-up: an EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 80 PLUS Gold.

Best $2000 PC Build

El 4K 2000

Built By: Nikoli707

Nikoli707’s “El 4K 2000” continues leaning on the Core i5-6600K, balancing stock performance, reasonable cost and overclockability. And like G-Unit1111’s build, it relies on SLI to outperform the competition. Instead of using GTX 970s, however, this setup employs two EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti SC graphics cards with 6GB of GDDR5. Because this doubles the amount of cash spent compared to “Big Things Come In Small Packages”, Nikoli707 had to settle for a lower-end air cooler and a less efficient PSU. Nikoli707 also removed the SSD to pare costs back even more. No doubt, many of you will take issue with that decision.

Best $600 Steam Machine Build

Tiny Shoe Box

Built By: _Hi_

With the rising popularity of SteamOS, we also wanted to take a close look at a system designed specifically as a Steam machine. The “Tiny Shoe Box”, submitted by _Hi_, uses a low-end mini-ITX motherboard and PC case, making it smaller than the other PCs. Instead of showcasing Intel’s Skylake architecture, _Hi_ opted to use a Haswell-based Core i3-4150, which should be faster than the AMD Athlon CPU used in the $500 build, but slower than the other machines. The “Tiny Shoe Box” also leverages Gigabyte's Radeon R9 380 SOC graphics card with 4GB of GDDR5, which should be capable of playing games at 1080p and demanding detail settings.

I was especially impressed with the dual computer build by LogainOfHades, nice job!

Lutfij

I personally think LogainOfHaides's build was spectacular Not many people you see consolidate two builds, in a family that use the same space for their day to day tasks, on one case. Most people think to go for a (basement)server rack and then have long wires running along the crib.

Regardless, thank you to the community for voting for my build in the $1,500 category. I'm very humbled! I also want to congratulate Barty, Techy, Arthur and Logain for winning their respective categories. Ofc, the votes from the community and our reader base had a hand in that

+ We need more of this competition.

WildCard999

291971 said:

+ We need more of this competition.

Agreed, maybe like best ITX/MATX/ATX/EATX within a certain budget.

mlee 2500

Nice work by Barty1884....under $500 for a new machine that can handle 99% of what most non-gamers use a PC for.

Using a 3GB GTX 1060 instead of the 1050 would have pushed the cost up another $70, but given it more mainstream gaming capabilities. I've used it to play Total War games at 2K with decent results.

mlee 2500

Yeah, that Phantek's case design blew my mind.

TechyInAZ

I have to agree aswell, Logain's build is AMAZING!

Corporate_goon

I found your SSD choices a bit baffling - given the amount SSDs have dropped recently, I'd assume every PC above the $1000 mark would have a 1TB drive - with a gaming PC, you want your games loading off the SSD, and it only takes a couple of games the size of Witcher III, GTA V, or Monster Hunter: World to fill up a 500GB drive.

logainofhades

Somehow, the 1tb 660p, that the system originally had for games storage, on the mini-itx side, was accidentally removed.

vrekman64

pardon me but, why pair a 2700x with a ASRock B450M PRO4 While a 2600 with Asus Prime X470-Pro?shouldn't be the other way around? thanks

mlee 2500

134970 said:

I found your SSD choices a bit baffling - given the amount SSDs have dropped recently, I'd assume every PC above the $1000 mark would have a 1TB drive - with a gaming PC, you want your games loading off the SSD, and it only takes a couple of games the size of Witcher III, GTA V, or Monster Hunter: World to fill up a 500GB drive.

You're absolutely right. I thought I was future proofing myself by dedicating a 1TB EVO 960 M.2 as a STEAM-only drive on my new build, but really 500GB is the minimum you want these days, and that's assuming it's not also being used for OS or anything else. And I say that as someone who usually only has a dozen or so games installed at any given time.

Nothing dampens your enthusiasm and slows your New Game Roll like having to figure out what previous games to delete first.

Krazie_Ivan

1791309 said:

134970 said:

I found your SSD choices a bit baffling - given the amount SSDs have dropped recently, I'd assume every PC above the $1000 mark would have a 1TB drive - with a gaming PC, you want your games loading off the SSD, and it only takes a couple of games the size of Witcher III, GTA V, or Monster Hunter: World to fill up a 500GB drive.

You're absolutely right. I thought I was future proofing myself by dedicating a 1TB EVO 960 M.2 as a STEAM-only drive on my new build, but really 500GB is the minimum you want these days, and that's assuming it's not also being used for OS or anything else. And I say that as someone who usually only has a dozen or so games installed at any given time.
Nothing dampens your enthusiasm and slows your New Game Roll like having to figure out what previous games to delete first.

AMD's StoreMI; loading times of an SSD, w/o consuming all your storage. each build i did with an AMD cpu had this tech in-mind. made sure to use M.2 (if i could afford it) to further the effect. SSDs are much cheaper lately, fo sho - but still not as cheap as the combo (& every penny mattered).

but my builds didn't win anything here, so take advice from me with a grain -lol

Krazie_Ivan

1951562 said:

pardon me but, why pair a 2700x with a ASRock B450M PRO4 While a 2600 with Asus Prime X470-Pro?
shouldn't be the other way around? thanks

i can't speak for the winners, can only say why i'd personally do it... i'd normally prefer to let auto-boost do it's thing with an "X" chip, which will be the same on either mobo. but if i'm building with a non-X cpu, then i'm manually OC'g & want the added VRM stability. course, pricing constraints in the competition rarely let me do what i prefer.

i found it odd that the "Mainstream Gaming" system wasn't full of i5 entries/votes, and the "Content Creation & Gaming" winner wasn't a threaded workload monster with massive SSDs. when i saw the $5k dual build, i knew it was over for the rest of us, lol (GJ mate).

Wouldn't look here for build advice. This page isn't updated frequently enough, prices are way off compared to online, and recommendations are more expensive than pre-builds even.

Krazie_Ivan

588528 said:

Wouldn't look here for build advice. This page isn't updated frequently enough, prices are way off compared to online, and recommendations are more expensive than pre-builds even.

i can agree with points made on updates to this site's suggestions, & price fluctuation is hourly on components (so differing models with same specs will change the advice) ...but a custom-built PC costs more than pre-builts due to the quality of components.

mainstream OEM systems tend to be a hot tin box filled with the absolute lowest tier junk that actively prevent upgrades so you'll buy another whole PC instead. even many of the the boutique pre-builts (which are normally more expensive for the same hardware) tend to cut corners that i wouldn't, or be configured in ways that diminish value.

people don't build their own unless they are really into the idea, so those who could care less are not the reader a contest like this will attract anyway.

andy2112

Careful: The link for the case on the $2000 gaming that's supposed to be the Cooler Master Silencio 652S goes to the 352 which is for a mini-ATX (and won't hold the ASROCK H370 ATX board...)Also shows the price for the 352: the 652S on Amazon from a 3rd party seller (NewEgg doesn't even have it) is about double the price too.Might want to change to a more available ATX case while you're at it.

jelle.sebrechts

help me whats the best to buy for making music because i had apple but want to change to .........

feelinfroggy777

MERGED QUESTIONQuestion from alinelopesfuruya : "Building a new dream pc"

2879509 said:

So hey guys! I’m building a dream pc and I’m new on this... you know the best configuration for a 2080ti and i9 9900k?
I'll actually buy in the middle of the year but I need to know what I need to buy to raise money haha
It’s a dream pc so you can give me answers with “high” price or low whatever xD

If you are not gonna build till the middle of the year then wait. A lot can happen in 6 months in the tech industry. Rumors suggest that AMD's 7nm Ryzen CPUs are going to be impressive.

abcfeltsstanaway

What ASRock Fatal1ty motherboard is it the Z170 gaming k6

shrapnel_indie

Kudos to the winners...

The competition was tough and close. Unfortunately, I got a distinct feeling with the voting, hopefully completely incorrect. I think... one way to alleviate such a feeling, and it's possible others may have felt it too... is this:

1) Submit the builds blind to the competition. This will keep who's build is what quiet. This will also keep someone from just taking a build and changing a couple of things and submitting it as theirs. (Admittedly, this last one can be a problem too if john doe and Mr Smith come up with the same name and/or build on their own. Both would need to be informed so either one or both can change it.)

2) When it comes to open voting, only disclose the name of the build and the build itself, not the builders. If anyone feels that a vote is based on popularity of the builder, this will be squashed in this manner, and still let the chosen and vetted builds be reviewed.

Just something to ponder. I really do like the competition and would like to see it more often.